U.S. begins intel sharing with Syria's HTS-led transition

With one ISIS plot foiled, a look to the future... and the past

In the early hours of January 11, members of the elite HTS-linked General Security Service (GSS) raided an apartment in outer Damascus, in which they found four men, heavily armed and in the last phase of planning a deadly attack on a shrine in the Shia suburb of Sayyida Zeinab. The four men were ISIS operatives, who intended to kill as many Shia Muslims as possible, using assault rifles and grenades, jerry-rigged landmines, and ultimately, explosive-laden backpacks. Such an attack would have risked destroying Syria’s fragile transition and paving a path towards a new round of civil conflict.

But the HTS-led transitional government foiled the attack – thanks to U.S. intelligence.